I'm not sure. What I do know is that one or two jurisdictions--I'm not sure which ones--have elected not to claw back the supplement that is given to families. So this is setting up a situation of inequality, and there is a challenge on that that has not yet gone to trial. I think that's a good example of a situation of inequality that needs to be heard out. There needs to be a ruling, and this program ostensibly has supported that particular case that hasn't come to trial yet.
I just want to add, in response to a previous question we heard--I think it was your question--that I understand in May 2006 the current government appeared before a UN committee in Geneva to defend its commitment to human rights in Canada, and it actually described the court challenges program as evidence of this commitment at the time. It indicates that the government wrote to the UN committee--and I'm just quoting here:
The Court Challenges Program (CCP) provides funding for test cases of national significance in order to clarify the understanding of the rights of official language minority communities and the equality rights of disadvantaged groups—
It is not possible for the government to support all court challenges, but this uniquely Canadian program has been successful in supporting a number of important court cases that have had direct impacts on the implementation of linguistic and equality rights in Canada. A recent evaluation
--and there have been three, I understand, since 1994--
found that there remain dimensions of the constitutional provisions currently covered by the CCP that still require clarification and the current program was extended to March 2009.
So if that letter was in fact written in May 2006 and the announcement for the cancellation of the program was a few months later, it would seem there was a very narrow window indeed in which to consult with the groups that might be affected by it.